If you build it, they will swim | News

EUGENE, Ore. - We built it.

And they came.

Or, more accurately, swam.

For the first time in over 60 years, juvenile spring Chinook salmon are swimming through newly created side channels of the Willamette River at Delta Ponds and Heron Slough.

Consultants hired to monitor the fish have captured and released more than 50 salmon since January, the City of Eugene said.

A grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Restoration Center allowed the City to hire a consultant to monitor the fish in Delta Ponds and Heron Slough.

Slow-moving, side-channels such as those recently restored at Delta Ponds and Heron Slough provide areas of calm water during high winter flows, the City said.

In the 2.2 mile side channel at Delta Ponds and the quarter-mile channel across the river at Heron Slough, juvenile salmon are able rest, feed and grow larger before continuing on to the ocean.

The City designed both projects to provide overwintering habitat for juvenile Chinook salmon.